Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Another New Qualifer

"Fun" Facts about....Sweden!


1. Good at movies, bad at music. For your perusal--on the movie side, Sweden can claim Ingmar Bergman, which is really enough right there. Throw in Greta Garbo, Anita Ekberg, Ingrid Bergman and Max Von Sydow. Music: ABBA, Roxette, Ace of Base. Yngwie Malmsteen & the Cardigans can't make up for all that suckitude.

2. Svante August Arrhenius theorized that increased Carbon Dioxide gas in the atmosphere would lead to warming of the planet, way back in 1898. Oh, those crazy Swedes! Wikipedia shows how much he knew: "Arrhenius expected CO2 doubling to take about 3000 years; it is now generally expected to take about a century." Crazy, and inaccurate Swedes! How are we to trust a scientist so wildly off in his estimates? Best to ignore him altogether.

3. One of my absolute favorite playwrights, August Strindberg is from Sweden. He was also crazier than a shithouse rat. But that's beside the point (though according to one of my professors, he did attempt to commit suicide by running into a tree headfirst repeatedly). My personal favorite play of his, I think, is "Miss Julie" with "The Ghost Sonata" a close second. Wikipedia has a lovely quote from Strindberg, which pretty much sums up his attitude: "When they say Christ descended into Hell, they mean that he descended to earth, this penitentiary, this madhouse and morgue of a world."

Happy Wednesday Morning, everybody! More "Fun" Facts Here.

1 comment:

Muumuuman said...

Obviously I appreciate the Arrhenius most of all. You forgot to mention the equation that bears his name:

k = Ae^-Ea/RT

This is a good estimate, however the activation energy does have a slight temperature dependence. Anyway, in order for a reaction to take place they must have enough energy to form an activated complex. The USA needs to take this to heart as they haven't quite had enough energy to even muster shots on goal.